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Can anyone please tell me if these figures add up. We purchased a off plan property in 2004 paying the solicitor 650 Euros which was 50% of there fee, the development did not get the go ahead so we transferred to 2nd property and are hoping to complete in early July.

We have just received the solicitors final statement on a property and associate fees of the following:

We have no Hab Cert and when i questioned there fee they informed me that “they did not carry out on the 1st property and did not charge us all the resting fees. We only paid 50% because we did not go to completion. Our 2nd property is a new purchase we are being charged accordingly”

My questions are, are the solicitors fees just, is the notary fee to high for the value of the property and is “Mazapolis y plus valia” to high, as i know other residents on the site have been charged an up front cost of 720 Euros for future use of electricity by the developer even tho they have no Hab Cert.

Notary, land registry and stamp duty__2610 E
Mazapolis y plus valia_______________1187 E
What is Mazapolis ? (I’ve never heard this word)The Plus valia must be paid by the vendor. The buyer is not liable

720 Euros for future use of electricity (you can’t be charged for this, it is a typical scam)

The VAT actually looks a little low to me – I understood it should be 7% on the purchase price which would be 8913 €

I understand that there is also a small amount of stamp duty in addition and the notary fees and land registry charges do not seem too far our, although you should ask for a breakdown. This is obviously an estimate of completion costs and the items that make up this item will all be subject to receipts that can be checked and all will be on a scale charge basis.

The solicitors fees – I would expect a fee of 1% of purchase price plus IVA and it looks like this is what you have been charged (127334€ X1% plus 16% = 1,477) plus the 650€ retained for their fees for the aborted purchase = 2127€ . Obviously the solicitors are entitled to be paid for their work on that purchase – I do not know how much they did or how far they had to negotiate to get you out of the original deal with the developer, so can’t comment on what would be fair, but the fee they charged for the actual purchase, IMO, is right (subject to last paragraph below)

The plus valia is a separate thing. In theory it is a sellers tax BUT often it is paid by the buyer if it is in the contract. This practice has gone on amongst the Spanish for years. I sold a property last year and negotiated a 50/50 sharing of plus valia, and in fact when I bought the property originally the seller insisted on my paying the plus valia. That was eventually negotiated to 33/33/33 between myself, the seller and the agent to “save” the deal. Obviously if your contract included a provision for you to pay the tax, there is nothing you can do to change that. However, I hope you were aware of this when signing the contract?

In Andalucia you can expect as “on costs” of a purchase about 9% for a resale, 10% for a new build and plus 2% if a mortgage is involved. So, assuming there is no mortgage, you should expect a total “on cost” of about 12,733€ being 10%. Forgetting the 650€ for the aborted purchase and the plus valia which is a separate thing, you are being asked to pay in total………. VAT 8,330 € plus Notary, land registry and stamp duty 2,610 € plus Solicitors fees 1,477 € = 12,417 € . In general terms, that is about right.

I think your biggest problem and a reason why your solicitor shouldn’t be asking you for any form of completion at the moment is@redjoyin wrote:

We have no Hab Cert

Depending on the circumstances etc, I think the solicitors fee of 650€ on the aborted purchase could become insignificant when you start to litigate over the LFO – think you need to share a bit more about that on this forum and get some opinions before you go for completion! The question then will also be should you be paying the solicitor at all if they haven’t done their job and ensured all papers are in order including an LFO. Again any request for an electricity payment so that you can use the house illegally is also a minor issue within what I think could be a far bigger problem.

Sorry Rob, but when your are buying off-plan it is not usual to include in the contract anything about the plusvalia, always the promoter pay this tax. Perhaps when you are buying a resale property you could share but not in this case

Sorry Rob, but when your are buying off-plan it is not usual to include in the contract anything about the plusvalia, always the promoter pay this tax. Perhaps when you are buying a resale property you could share but not in this case

The property in question, was in fact a new build BUT NOT off plan – it was completed as was the rest of the development of ten.

It is not what is usual or otherwise IMO, it is what is agreed and contracted. Must admit in my case, the promoter tried to slip the “buyer to pay plus valia” clause into the private contract and myself and solicitor who picked up on it. The developer originally would not budge on what he wanted but we eventually negotiated the deal that we all paid some including the agent (from his OTT commission obviously!) as we all wanted the deal to go through (for varying reasons)

With redjoyin, the matter of plus valia could be a minor issue but before completion the purchase contract needs checking. If a contract has been signed with a “buyer to pay plus valia” clause in it, I assume you will agree that is final. If not, then it needs to be pushed back at the developer (but in that case I also think the solicitor should make a retention of the PV and pay direct as the debt will stay with the property if unpaid)

I take it, from the mention of Mazapolis, that you have transferred from a certain development in Almería to one, by the same developer, in Murcía. If so, then it would seem that the 720€ is a deposit against any electricity (generated on site by the developer using huge diesel generators giving you a potential of over 7KW) that you may use until the LFO is issued. The LFO’s are slowly but surely being issued for this development, in fact I think you’ll find that you are already connected to mains water.

Maybe one of the legals can clarify whether your developer can charge for the electricity that they are providing (not what I would call ‘builder’s supply’) while waiting for the LFO to be issued.

I take it, from the mention of Mazapolis, that you have transferred from a certain development in Almería to one, by the same developer, in Murcía. If so, then it would seem that the 720€ is a deposit against any electricity (generated on site by the developer using huge diesel generators giving you a potential of over 7KW) that you may use until the LFO is issued. The LFO’s are slowly but surely being issued for this development, in fact I think you’ll find that you are already connected to mains water.

Maybe one of the legals can clarify whether your developer can charge for the electricity that they are providing (not what I would call ‘builder’s supply’) while waiting for the LFO to be issued.

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